Cleveland, Ohio, medical mart may have to fend off another competitor based in Nashville, Tennessee: Central Planning tries to outrun the Capitalists

This whole medmart drill is getting to be delicious. I added the “Ohio” to the headline to make sure we didn’t get confused with Cleveland, Tennessee, or any of the other US cities called “Cleveland” which, as we shrink and they grow, we rapidly approach in size and mission-criticality. The drill thus far: First, our local lightweights introduce their friends as the major players and beneficiaries, and tell us we should be grateful that they’d even deign to look in our direction; then, they confiscate public dollars for their friends and for the local medical community by imposing a tax increase without putting it to a vote; then, they bog down as everybody sees the dollars in motion and tries to pile onto the FREE STUFF wagon.

That 1991 Oldenburg FREE Stamp down by the city hall takes on new levels of meaning for me every day. It is indeed a work of art, and I am beginning to become aware.

Entrepreneurs with capitalist leanings in New York and Nashville eventually notice the feeding frenzy around the central planning pork barrel and decide to fund what’s basically a good idea quickly and privately, thus doing an end-around on a particularly vulgar fray and display of greed. The Nashville people decide to use CNL for financing; Kennedy’s partner Vornado still has not stepped up and offered financing, being content to extort the local tax base until the game ends, one way or the other. Why hasn’t Kennedy offered to execute in a capitalistic way? Perhaps because he knows he’s frolicking on the North Coast of the Welfare-Queen State, with the lightweights?

I’d say it’s time to give the unvoted tax increase to the RTA for free public transit to match our free public education, add the kicker of beginning the MedicalMarijuanaMerchandiseMart (4M?) right now, on a street corner, out of a suitcase, and get private financing for the mart to hold the rest of the medical merchandising displays, just like the big boys.

If you want to be the first on your block, you gotta hustle.

And let’s get over these self-esteem issues. We are intrinsically wealthy in Cleveland, Ohio. We have a built heritage that is beyond compare, despite efforts of the Jackson administration and the banksters to demolish it. Our basic infrastructure is pretty darned good, too. We have a natural heritage that includes fresh water, a temperate climate, varied terrain, lots of wind, and the vestiges of forests of trees. Let’s not buy into the idea that we’re pathetic or needy, because we’re not; we’ve got everything we need right here, right now.

This city is not so ugly it has to tie a porkchop around its neck to get the dogs to play with it. Welcome to Cleveland, Chris. Now either put up some capital, or go home.

Cleveland medical mart may have to fend off another competitor based in Nashville, Tennessee - Metro - cleveland.com

multiplying talents: Cleveland Heights pastor at Forest Hill Church takes cue from parable, gives congregants $50 each

Great story from our friend Mike O’Malley. Instructive, too.

It occurs to me now that we Roman Catholics are uniquely positioned to do the same, but on a larger scale. Instead of demolishing churches or shutting them down and having them reappear on the tax rolls, what if the diocese gave away a church to the congregation, to see what would come back? That strikes me as being the proper role of a conservator of the parishes’ aggregated assets, a trustee of the efforts of prior generations.

In the final analysis, it’s not about the money at all. The tail has been wagging the dog. It’s about people, and what our forbears put together for the support of a strong community then and now. The money was spent and the energy expended long ago to provide what we have now, and we must honor that, and conserve.

Again, we’re back to the old “Waste not, want not,” but it holds true.

Cleveland Heights pastor at Forest Hill Church takes cue from parable, gives congregants $50 each - Metro - cleveland.com

the antidote for ward division: secession

There's been a furor yesterday and today in Ward 15 of the City of Cleveland about a tripartite division of what is one of the Cleveland area's most intrinsically valuable suburbs, the park neighborhood from which the beautiful Cleveland Zoo sprang. Part would go to Joe Santiago to the north, part would go to Joe Cimperman to the east, and another part would join Tony Brancatelli, connecting by jumping over Newburg Heights.

I'm quite tired of arguing over basic common-sense issues with the city government here in Cleveland. It takes a lot of time and energy that could be way better spent.

I am proposing quite simply that we in Ward 15 secede, become the Village of Brooklyn Centre once more, lower our overhead, and take back our governance. This should take the population of the City of Cleveland down to less than 400,000 as of the next census, and perhaps that will qualify them for some sort of emergency-aid intervention as they waddle up to the DC trough.

We in Brooklyn Centre already have the fire station, the police station, two libraries, the hospital, two cemeteries, a lovely park adjacent to the Zoo, a number of churches, good basic housing stock, and great freeway access and transit routes. What we need now is to be freed from stupidity and the abusive actions of deeply conflicted politicians, like Marty Sweeney and Kevin Kelley. We can't afford them.

If you're wondering what it's like to live in Cleveland and be subject to the inept ministrations of these two disgraces to my Irish heritage, try to imagine what it would be like to be walked by your dog.

I like living on a bus line

I just saw the 807 circulator go by in the rain and realized how much I liked living on a bus line. I see the lit buses go by in the early morning and in the late evening, symbols of our quiet neighborhood's connectivity to things more cosmopolitan. I see them whoosh by all day, reminders of the to hustle and bustle of the extended workday going on elsewhere. It's comforting to have them around. They're my connection to my local civilization.

If it weren't for the demolition of the Fulton Road Bridge, I might never have had the experience of having the buses run by my house. They used to run on Pearl and on Fulton, the spoke streets radiating from the downtown hub, but the older connectors, like Denison, were largely ignored. The emphasis was not so much on functionality among neighborhoods as it was on commuting through them, on bypassing them in an express fashion.

Denison originally had a trolley line running down its middle, and one lane either side of the trolley path for cars. We have a lot of storefronts on and adjacent to Denison, as Sandy Rozhon's chronicling at the Brooklyn Centre WIKI will attest. It is still a main connector to Newburgh Heights and the east side of the valley via Harvard, to the freeways (176 and 77), to Tremont and to the new developments down at Steelyard Commons. The bus line suits it well.

I'm thinking that with this next round of revisions of bus service, we need to become our own best advocates when it comes to requesting bus service as a critical driver for a thriving community.